A better year for honey
Jenny Thornhill
We sell a lot of honey, and I mean a lot. We have amazing raw honey from both Portugal and Spain which is harvested in vast, unspoilt wilderness areas. You can choose from about ten different varieties including thyme, lavender, eucalyptus, orange blossom, sunflower and Arbutus (a bitter honey which has high medicinal properties). I love how varied they are in colour and consistency, even within the same variety.
Generally, we always have these honeys available and they fill several of the shelves in the shop. However, whenever we can we love to have local honey. It always feels very special to receive honey direct from the beekeeper. It’s absolutely a labour of love for them all and it feels like a special gift when it comes.
Last year was not a good year for the bees and honey production so we only had one small delivery of one of the local honeys. But this year it’s looking very different, and we have already taken delivery of very healthy quantities of local honey with more expected. These beekeepers only take what the bees don’t need themselves and leave enough honey in the hives for them to feed on during the winter. The honey varies in flavour and colour depending on whether it is spring or summer honey and what the bees have been feeding on.
I feel this honey is very precious, it is simply filtered to remove ‘bits’ and then jarred. It is not heated and I am happy to pay a decent price for it as there is so much work involved in beekeeping and, as last year shows, not all years produce surplus honey to sell yet the care taken looking after them continues regardless.
